I am…

I am a feminist!  Ok well maybe Max’s (a.k.a. padre’s) word – humanist – would be a better fit.  Let me explain.  For one of my classes I’m doing an oral report on an article written by a Karlyn Kohrs Campbell titled “The Rhetoric of Women’s Liberation: An Oxymoron” and in this paper she compares Women’s Lib Rhetoric to classic rhetoric and highlights the differences but she also talks about laws and other things that were “against” women.  Now keep in mind this paper was written in the 1970s so some of these laws may or may not be around anymore.  Anyway I was reading about some Supreme Court ruling in 1874 and then again in 1961 that said the Fourteenth Amendment does not protect everyone specifically that the ‘protection clause’ of the Fourteenth Amendment was meant only for the protection of men and then she went on to talk about some other laws and rulings where a man can take or sell property including his wife’s income without having to tell or ask her and another one where a court won’t uphold a woman’s choice of name once she’s married.  And then in class my Rhetoric teacher, T.S. was telling us about some notable women back in the 18 and 1900s that began the fight for equal rights.  There was a woman named Francis Wright who received death threats because she gave a Fourth of July speech.  Let me say that again for emphasis she received Death Threats because she gave a SPEECH!  Not only that but it was the first recorded speech by a woman in all of history and it happened in 1828!  1828.  Unbelievable.  And then there were the Grimke sisters, two women who supported abolition, were incredibly outspoken about it and used the Bible to refute slavery while in the South (which if you didn’t know was incredibly risky) plus they also spoke in public forums apparently they received threats, got beat up and got run out of town on a regular basis.  It makes my heart sick to think that as early as the 1800s women weren’t allowed to speak in public – that’s not really that long ago people.  And it hurts my heart to think that as early as the 1970s women were still struggling to get equal rights.  I mean African-American men got the right to vote before women for crying out loud.  And it seems to me like a lot of this fighting sort of petered off by the 21^st century but it should still be happening!  The fight isn’t over women still don’t have equal rights with men in all areas.  I mean we have come far, very, very, very far from where we were at; I can go to college now, I can talk in public, I can vote, I can own property, I can keep my maiden name when I get married if I want, I can get a really good job and keep the money I make from that job for myself and if I get divorced I have claim to a portion of the belongings.  And it is astounding to me that none of that seems like a big deal to me…until I look back at the way women were treated in the 1900s, 1800s and every century before, then I feel this overwhelming sense of gratitude and respect for the women who had the guts to stand up and say “This is wrong, I want my rights as a human being” and fight for it to happen.  And I wonder what those women, Francis Wright, the Grimke sisters, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Sojourner Truth, Virginia Woolf and all the others who fought against the prevailing system would think of the life I currently lead, I have no doubt many of them would still be fighting against inequality but I would hope that they would be proud of where we are at and of what we’ve won.